WHITESNAKE frontman David Coverdale says that he has changed his mind about retiring, explaining that the last few months of being on the road with his current band have “re-energized” him and inspired him to work on new music, according to blabbermouth.net.

WHITESNAKE is touring in support of its twelfth studio album, “The Purple Album”, which was released in May via Frontiers Music Srl. The effort is billed as “a re-imagination of classic songs from Coverdale‘s time as the lead singer for DEEP PURPLE‘s Mark III and Mark IV studio albums.” Coverdale was DEEP PURPLE‘s frontman from late 1973 to early 1976 and sang on the albums “Burn”, “Stormbringer” and “Come Taste The Band”.

Speaking to Macedonia’s Metropolis Radio, Coverdale stated about what it has been like to perform classic PURPLE material after so many years (hear audio below): “The songs don’t feel old when we perform them. Yesterday, I was listening to some of the live recordings from the U.S. tour, and they’re fucking amazing. This band is great. They play WHITESNAKE music, of course, fantastic, but they play DEEP PURPLE music fantastic. It’s definitely even more so than on the record. It’s very powerful and you can tell the musicians are enjoying themselves and you can see it and you can hear it. And hopefully you can feel it too.”

David went on to explain that “The Purple Album” was originally going to mark the end of his recording career but has since turned out to be the catalyst for the new WHITESNAKE band to work on new material. He said: “Well, it’s interesting, because when I was mixing ‘The Purple Album’ with my co-producer Michael McIntyre and Reb [Beach, WHITESNAKE guitarist], it felt to me…You know, I was 63 years old, and I’m going, ‘Man, how long do I have to do this? This would be a perfect closure for me — to finish as I started.’ But it’s just kind of… In essence, it’s re-energized me. I still write new music. We’ll be recording some new music next year. But it’s just revitalized me… re-renergized. That’s all I can say. So any ideas that I had six months ago of retiring… I was totally honest, when I was making interviews, that I thought, you know, ‘This is probably it.’ But I had an incredibly good time on this U.S. tour with my musicians. It was incredible.”

He continued: “It was very important to us not just to… An amazing discovery for me, when I rediscovered this music, was how fucking incredible DEEP PURPLE was. ‘Cause I’m not a nostalgic guy. I don’t listen to this music all the time; not at all. I had to reintroduce myself to these songs. And it wasn’t a situation of just recreating them; it was a situation of reinventing some of them. There was not one moment that I said to any of my musicians, ‘I want you to play this like Ian Paice.’ ‘I want you to play this like Tommy Bolin or Glenn Hughes.’ The musicians, starting with Tommy Aldridge on drums, came in and made their individual statement on these songs. Everybody contributed to this project in the most positive way, and even now that we’ve been performing these songs, it’s even better than when we were recording them. And it just makes it more inspiring to look at the future for new stuff, with these guys. They are fabulous musicians, great people. I have no desire to hang up my rock and roll sneakers just yet.”

Rock icons WHITESNAKE continue to show why they are a musical force to be reckoned with. The Purple Album was released last week via Frontiers Music Srl and has stormed the charts around the globe. In the US, the latest release landed at #6 on the Top Current Hard Music Albums, #15 on Top Current Rock Albums, #43 on Top Current Albums and #83 on the Billboard Top 200 Charts. Around the globe, you can also find The Purple Album at #18 in the United Kingdom, #9 in Finland, #17 in the Czech Republic, #11 in Switzerland, #34 in Norway, #18 in Sweden (#1 on the Hard Rock Charts in Sweden), #13 in Germany, #24 in the Netherlands and #8 in Japan.

“The Snakes & I are thrilled with the incredibly positive response to The Purple Album. Our sincere thanks to ALL for the amazing support we’re receiving for the album & The Purple Tour!!” exclaims David Coverdale.

The Purple Album is a re-imagination of classic songs from David Coverdales time as the lead singer for Deep Purples Mark 3 and Mark 4 studio albums. The album is currently available on Amazon in a deluxe edition format (http://geni.us/WSPurpleDLXamz) featuring 2 bonus tracks, 4 music videos and a Behind the Scenes feature on the recording of the album. A standard edition is also available and can be ordered here: http://radi.al/WSPurpleREGamaz and digitally via iTunes at: http://radi.al/WSPurpleiTunes.

Whitesnake is also planning to release a limited edition box set of The Purple Album on June 30th. The box set includes the deluxe edition of the CD alongside a 180-gram, 2 LP vinyl version, a poster and sticker as well as a limited edition lithograph and can be ordered here: http://radi.al/WSLtdEditionBoxSet. The 180-gram vinyl, also available as a stand-alone piece and can be ordered here: http://radi.al/WSPurpleLPamaz.

Whitesnake have released four different videos (a combination of traditional music videos and static YouTube clips) for songs from The Purple Album. Added together, these videos total have received over a million plays and counting, showing that fans new and old still love this iconic material, band and vocalist. From the opening notes of the classic track Burn, to album closer Stormbringer, Whitesnake are back and better than ever. Songs like Lady Double Dealer, Soldier of Fortune and Sail Away are given a new energy in the very capable hands of the current Whitesnake line-up featuring David Coverdale on vocals, Reb Beach and Joel Hoekstra on guitars, Michael Devin on bass and Tommy Aldridge on drums. A video for the first single Stormbringer can be seen here: http://youtu.be/Xk9wWj8Wh30. The track Burn can be heard at: https://youtu.be/q7UxOrBb0Is and Lay Down Stay Down can be heard at: https://youtu.be/I7_j7Qn2FSs. The video for Soldier Of Fortune premiered on CraveOnline.com (http://www.craveonline.com/music/articles/853381-video-premiere-whitesnake-return-stoic-soldier-fortune), and is now live and can be seen here: https://youtu.be/z69sxDq3Ybc.

Whitesnake will also be hitting the road this month in support of The Purple Album. The upcoming world tour kicks off in the U.S. on May 28th in Airway Heights, WA. The 42-city trek runs through the summer wrapping up on August 16th in St. Charles, MO. The tour will be making stops in Las Vegas, NV; Beverly Hills, CA; Atlantic City, NJ; and Orlando, FL among others. The band will be performing songs from The Purple Album as well as countless hit songs from their catalogue including Here I Go Again, Is This Love, and Still Of The Night. Tickets for all shows are on sale now and more information and purchase links can be found at: http://whitesnake.com/WS2013/features/purplealbum/index_dates.php.

Whitesnake was formed in England in 1978 by Coverdale. The band has released multi-platinum selling albums throughout the years and have been known for hits such as Slide It In, Here I Go Again, Still Of The Night and Is This Love.

40-year-old Michele Luppi first started getting into music at the tender age of just 5, thanks to his fascination with the hugely charismatic and popular Kiss.

Over the years he soon discovered the Music he truly loves; bands like Whitesnake, Winger, Mr. Big and House Of Lords drastically went deep and forged his Musical Roots.

He continued to take an active interest in music throughout his school years, focusing on musical studies as soon as possible and ultimately obtaining a diploma in the Vocal Institute of Technology (VIT) program from the Hollywood Musicians Institute in 1998.

In 1994 he formed a band called Mr. Pig, which, with a series of extensive tours, soon became one of the most popular live acts in Italy.

Around the same time he started working as a singer, musician, composer and producer with a range of different musical projects. In the past 12 years as a professional musician Michele has worked with a host of live acts and in studio sessions with artists and bands including Reb Beach, Eric Martin, Gregg Giuffria, Maurizio Solieri, George Lynch, Doug Aldrich, Ian Paice and many others.

In 1997 he started teaching, developing his own unique method for voice production that proved to be invaluable in the world of genres derived from Rock (Michele’s main focus) and also resulted in an invitation in October of 2007 from renowned auditive system and speech specialist Dr. Franco Fussi to participate in an international convention in the role of opinion leader, alongside speech therapists, singers, and many top professionals in the field.

Apart from teaching voice art in top Italian Music Schools and holding private lessons in his own studio, Michele has become one of Italy’s most sought after voice teachers and has organised a series of workshops based around his incredibly successful Voice Control method. At the time of writing more than 2500 students have benefited from learning Michele’s techniques.

Between 2002 and 2003 he participated in Umberto Tozzi’s world tour as a vocalist and keyboard player, taking part night after night in concerts with audiences in the thousands at many top venues such as the Paris Olympia, Les Palais Des-Beaux-Arts in Brussels, all the main theatres in France, Italy, and several other countries. He has also been on many music and variety shows on the main Italian TV channels (RAI and Mediaset) to promote Umberto Tozzi’s “Best Of” album, which went Platinum.

Michele wrote the material on the various albums, singing all the parts and recording his tracks in his private studio (MiLu’s RockLab) where he also carries out voice track production and recording for many other bands.

In August 2003 he became a full time member of Vision Divine. “Stream Of Consciousness” (2004), the “Stage Of Consciousness” DVD (2005), “The Perfect Machine” (2005) and “The 25th Hour”(2007) have all become absolute milestones in the genre and key albums in the collections of the band’s melodic metal fans, thanks also to excellent promotion and distribution, handled by several of the top labels in the genre, including Scarlet Records, King Records (Japan) and Metal Blade. The band performed as the headliner act on several Italian tours and as the opening act for Dream Theater, Nightwish, Sebastian Bach, Helloween, Children Of Bodom and many other big international names. Michele toured with VD many countries to support the Albums: Japan, US, Austria, China, Taiwan and all the main Latin American capital cities.

Over the years Michele released three AOR albums: “Strive” (2005), which climbed high on the Japanese charts, “Los Angeles” (2007), and “Neverland” (2009) for Frontiers Records. Both albums were very well acclaimed in the melodic rock scene. The first “Los Angeles” features Gregg Giuffria (one of Michele’s all-time musical idols) on keyboards. Apart from reaping the same excellent reviews received by the earlier works, this album greatly increased Michele’s international profile.

2008 sees the birth of Killing Touch, with Michele writing the material and producing the debut album “One Of A Kind” (Scarlet/Audioglobe, 2009), which is scheduled for release at the beginning of May in Japan on Marquee Records, just a few days ahead of the planned release date in Italy and the rest of the world.

In 2009 he co-wrote the songs for Maurizio Solieri’s first solo Album. The band opened for Deep Purple (all 6 dates) and for AC/DC at Friuli Stadium in Udine.

In 2010 Michele was chosen to sing and play Keys in a Major Rock Event in Bologna: he shared the stage with big names like Yngwie Malmsteen, Glenn Hughes, Gregg Bissonette, Derek Sherinian, Neil Murray among others. Later that year he joined Thaurorod, a Finnish Metal Band for the “Power Of Metal” European Tour with Symphony X and Nevermore and some major European Festivals.

In 2011 he became the singer of Secret Sphere and released the year after “Portrait Of A Dying Heart”, released in Japan by Warner Bors. An European Tour followed to support the Album, including a show at Wacken Open Air 2013 which DVD release include 3 songs from the band. After a successful Tour in Japan, “the band released A Time Never Come”, a classic Album from Secret Sphere completely re-recorded and arranged with the current line up.
Michele’s currently working on his solo Album and always touring with MLB (Michele Luppi Band), playing bass and singing all songs from all his previous Albums/Projects along with some AOR/Hard Rock classics.

Hosts Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from Canada’s ‘The Metal Voice’ recently spoke to the world’s most famous heavy-metal writerMartin Popoff about his new biography entitled Sail Away: Whitesnakes fantastic voyage. The first ever full biography of the band tells the tale of rock legend David Coverdale, from his Deep Purple roots to the two distinct incarnations of his mega-popular creation

In this book—his 45th—Popoff conducted 30 interviews of major characters, including David Coverdale , Bernie Marsden, Neil Murray, Micky Moody, Adrian Vandenberg, Steve Vai, John Kalodner, Doug Aldrich, Keith Olsen, Ian Paice and many others to piece together the band’s roller-coaster history. Popoff follows their story through the hirings and firings, the splits and reunions and the image changes.

On why he chose to write a book on Whitesnake

”Normally when I do these books I get more enthusiastic to do a whole book on a band if there hasn’t been anything, I am very suprpised, there is no books on Whitesnake. ”

When asked why he spent less time writing about each Whitesnake song

”You can only talk about David Coverdale’s lyrics for too long but replacing that is that there is a lot to write about in terms of production and all of these people in and out of the band, the inter-band politics, so in essence the manpower side of it replaces the words you spend on the song by song of it.”

When Asked about his favourite part about the book

”To me my favourite part of the book is the whole massive debacle that takes place with Slide it and Whitesnake (album) those are the two most complicated record making sessions probably in the history of mankind.”

When asked what was his biggest revelation when writing this book

‘’The battles between John Sykes and David Coverdale and how they were both big divas in their different ways and David never liked to be called a Diva he prides himself on his working class Northern England background but he can be pretty demanding and full of himself I suppose in some ways as well and runs into this massive odd personality in John Sykes.”

Rock icons WHITESNAKE are set to return with their 12th studio album this spring. “The Purple Album” will be released in Europe on May 15th, the UK on May 18th and in North America on May 19th via Frontiers Music SRL. “The Purple Album” is a re-imagination of classic songs from David Coverdale’s time as the lead singer for DEEP PURPLE’s Mark 3 and Mark 4 studio albums.

The album is currently available for pre-order in various configurations on Amazon: a standard edition (http://amzn.to/1EQjry0), a deluxe edition (http://amzn.to/17Xxc2P) featuring 2 bonus tracks, 4 music videos and a Behind The Scenes featurette on the recording of the album and in a double LP vinyl format. Plans are also underway for a special limited box set edition with memorabilia and merchandise. All details will be announced soon.

“It’s a tribute. A homage. It’s a huge thank you from me to Deep Purple for the opportunity I was given over 40 years ago,” says Coverdale. “As I said to Richie, you guys set me on an incredible journey that continues today and I couldn’t have asked for better teachers. The University of Deep Purple is an extraordinary, amazing school to learn from. We can’t wait to play these songs in concert.”

From the opening notes of the classic track “Burn” to album closer “Stormbringer”, Whitesnake are back and better than ever. Songs like “Lady Double Dealer”, “Soldier of Fortune” and “Sail Away” are given a new energy in the very capable hands of the current Whitesnake line-up featuring David Coverdale on vocals, Reb Beach and Joel Hoekstra on guitars, Michael Devin on bass and Tommy Aldridge on drums.

To celebrate and commemorate the 30th Anniversary of WHITESNAKE’s multi-platinum ‘SLIDE IT IN’ album, Frontiers Music Srl has released “LIVE IN ‘84 – BACK TO THE BONE”, a complete celebration of the group’s awe inspiring touring lineup during what many feel was the beginning of what COVERDALE called his desire to make WHITESNAKE more ‘electrifying’ on record and on stage.

The ‘LIVE IN 84’ CD and DVD release features audio and video recordings, unheard demos and unseen photos from the private collection of WHITESNAKE leader and vocalist, DAVID COVERDALE. This release offers an ultra-rare collection of material, performed by the band’s acclaimed 83-84 line-ups. Featured on the record are the awesome COZY POWELL on drums (ex- Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, MSG and later on Gary Moore and Black Sabbath, among others), unique virtuoso guitarist JOHN SYKES, whom Coverdale credits with inspiring a whole generation of six stringers after his breathtaking work on the WHITESNAKE ’87’ album, and Bassist Extraordinaire NEIL MURRAY. Also includes heart-stopping bonus content featuring legendary keyboardist JON LORD (Deep Purple) performing his very last show with WHITESNAKE on video and also on the bonus CD.

“It’s still hard for me to find the words when remembering that half of the incredible band who originally recorded the ‘SLIDE IT IN’ album with me have passed away,” says COVERDALE. “It’s incredibly difficult to articulate: COZY POWELL…MEL GALLEY…JON LORD…All amazing people and exceptional musicians performing at their best. Their memories live on in our hearts & in the music they made. I miss them beyond words… Wait until you see and hear them playing as only they can and add in the fiery guitar assault of the incredibly gifted JOHN SYKES, plus the relentless melodic bass pounding of NEIL MURRAY…”

To put this together, COVERDALE and Co-Producer MICHAEL McINTYRE launched a worldwide search for the best quality video footage and audio tracks from the 1984 tour. Among the gems found was a set from: ‘Super-Rock’, recorded at the first Japanese rock festival at Seibu Stadium in Tokyo and an invaluable video of JON LORD’s final appearance with WHITESNAKE recorded live in Sweden. “All of the features on this package have been treated lovingly & respectfully, with no expense spared, utilizing technology to improve sound & picture quality,” says COVERDALE, who personally oversaw all elements of this release.

Concludes COVERDALE, “These are memories I treasure and delight in sharing with you as we continue our celebration of the 30th ANNIVERSARY of WHITESNAKE’s multi-platinum album ‘SLIDE IT IN.”